Dark Memories
by Bardic Knowledge
Summary: "My name is Dark. At least, that's the only thing I can remember from before I woke up all those years ago." An amnesiac man with the power to understand the language of Pokemon searches for his past, accompanied by Ash and his friends.


Dark Memories

Chapter 1: My Name Is Dark

My name is Dark.

At least, that's the only thing I can remember from before I woke up all those years ago. I was lost, confused, and afraid, with only the sound of several people crying out "Dark!" in my head. Thankfully, I hadn't spent much time in the wilderness at that point before I was met by a family of Gardevoir, Kirlia, and Ralts. One of them, a Ralts at the time, took a liking to me and left with me to find civilization.

As that family was the first group of Pokémon I had met after waking as I did, I had believed that I could only understand them because the lot of them were Psychic-types. It wasn't until I met with actual trainers that I found out that I could understand the words of all Pokémon. At first, I let it become a big deal, until the crowds got to be too much, and Angela, my Ralts friend, and I left in the night to another region.

It was there that I met my second companion. She was a young Ditto by the name of Sylvia, who was unfortunate enough to have been hatched a different shade from the rest of her family. You'd think a family of shape-shifters wouldn't care about such a minor thing, but they looked down upon any who were unable to "properly" Transform.

As the three of us travelled, we came across a small town where we were met by an old man named Professor Oak. He said he saw the makings of a great trainer in me, and offered to sign me up in the League in exchange for a third companion. After discussing things with Angela and Sylvia, I agreed.

And so, our newest addition, a black-scaled Charmander named Shadow, joined the group. That's also when we learned of Pokeballs. Shadow explained to us what he had learned, growing up in the Professor's Laboratory, about how trainers kept their Pokémon in Pokeballs to keep them safe and for portability. A few did keep one companion out at all times, but the rest stayed in their 'balls until needed. Shadow, did assure us, however, that the inside of a Pokeball was nothing hideous or wrong, and in fact was quite relaxing. Sylvia volunteered to test this, and agreed that the interior of the 'ball was nothing harmful.

Angela preferred to stay by my side regardless.

Being a trainer allowed me to gain funds for further travelling by having my companions fight and defeat other trainers' Pokémon companions. As we travelled across the Kanto region, we picked up a fourth member of the team, a young Horsea by the name of Kaiba, and both Angela and Shadow evolved to a higher state. I had an ulterior motive to all this travelling, one that my friends agreed to help with as best they could.

I was looking for my lost memories. I knew that my past was somewhere in the world, but I had no clue as to where to find it. As I said before, the only thing I could remember was my name, and that was barely anything to go on.

While in Johto, Angela and Shadow reached their fully evolved forms, and Kaiba evolved into a Seadra. And before we left, Claire, the Dragon Gym Leader, gave me a Dragon Scale to help Kaiba evolve into a Kingdra, his own final evolution.

On our way into Hoenn, where I first awoke and met Angela, I met a young man named Riley whose Lucario had recently had an egg he could unfortunately not keep. Angela and I agreed to take in the young Riolu, and we named him Lucas upon his hatching.

It was about that time, I'm told, that a young trainer named Ash Ketchum had begun his own Pokémon journey. Little did I know at the time how much his journey would affect mine.

Despite my earliest memories since waking being of there, no one in Hoenn knew who I was (except the small town I had first visited with Angela), but there was some consolation in the evolution of both Kaiba and Lucas into their final evolutions. There were only two regions left to search, but the next boat to Sinnoh wouldn't be around for several months, so I took a plane to the region of Unova.

There in Unova, I learned a bit about the history of their region, but nothing about the history of myself. My biggest issue was that Munna and Musharna would either attack me or run away as soon as I was "in range," and I had no idea why. I was beginning to get very frustrated with the whole ordeal, when I encountered an Axew lost and afraid. His own family was as lost as my own, so we travelled with him to try and find them.

We didn't.

As we neared the end of our search, a most peculiar event occurred. One that affected the whole world as the Legendary Birds of Kanto started fighting against each other. The only reason I knew the specifics was because I happened to be near a television for the live news of the situation, but at the time, I felt a pull, along with every Pokémon in the 'Center, to actually go to the Orange Islands and help as well.

That broadcast was the first time I had heard the name Ash Ketchum. But strangely, it felt as though I had met him somewhere before, and in similar circumstances.

The Axew we had, seemingly, adopted had decided to stay with us at this point, and considering the events surrounding his decision, everyone agreed to call him Apocalypse.

We finished our tour of Unova, Apocalypse having evolved into a Fraxure, and I prepared to search the last place left to us: the Sinnoh region. Because of the extreme mountain ranges in that region, planes couldn't fly us directly there, so we had to go back to Hoenn first.

Only, once we got there, we discovered that the best way was to take a boat from Kanto, so we took a trip there, first, and met Professor Oak again after so long away. He was glad to meet us, and he was even happier to meet Apocalypse, having never seen an Unovan Pokémon before then.

We made it to Sinnoh that month, but before we really started to explore, Ash Ketchum managed to catch up to us, as if his own journey around the world was taking no time at all...

A/N: I've had the idea for this fic for a while now (before I had added in Apocalypse or had heard of Black or White Versions at all, even), and realize that I've contorted Ash's timeline into a strange shape to get them both into Sinnoh at the same time.

And while this may seem to be a bit of a retelling of the Sinnoh League episodes, Dark will provide you all with a, hopefully interesting and unexpected, twist...


End file.
